And he owed her. She had given him the son and heir he demanded of a wife and he had wasted the boy and given away his empire to that asteroid-hopping nephew of his. But the worst of all was that he had had the gall to remarry -without even bothering to make absolutely certain she, his real wife, was dead.
True, she had gone to elaborate lengths to fake her death so that she might return to her own profitable career in the sex industry, but it had always galled her how easily and with what apparent relief he accepted the exaggerated reports of her demise. He had been glad, back then, to have the boy to himself. She had been glad to leave her son as well, then. She had found motherhood extremely taxing, despite a whole platoon of nannies, and even then had hated to have anyone thinking she was old enough to be someone’s mother!
But it had suited her purposes and those of her employers that she keep track of both her husband and her son. Her son had frequented the houses other colleagues and even, on a couple of occasions, had graced her own establishment, though of course he didn’t recognize her.
A fine boy, a strapping boy. Too bad he had caused such damage to the women he had used that they had to be replaced, at great expense, of course. After that, she reluctantly banned him. As for her dear husband, she was kept well informed of his movements and interests through those enemies she had happily supplied with detailed maps of his compound, an inventory of his most treasured possessions, the names of all of his personal guards she could recall, and other readily marketed information.
It was these people who finally secured her release from prison and these people, also, who engineered her arrival at this same compound where once she had been mistress, who got her past the guards, and who supplied her with one other little thing.
Hafiz delighted her by gaping at her as if she were indeed the ghost he supposed her to be.
“Yasmin!” he gasped, as his well-fed and gorgeously robed form appeared from among the glittering beads of the curtained doorway.
“Greetings, husband,” she said sweetly. “I was told you have recently remarried. I am assuming from this that you have recently embraced at least Reform Neo-Hadathian customs and have become polygamous, since we two are still legally twined in wedded bliss.” His face was turning the exact shade of scarlet she had hoped to see. She smiled sweetly. “No, no, my darling husband, do not imagine that I object. A senior wife can always use a young one to relieve her of some of her more distasteful duties. But I am surprised she is not here to greet me as well. Is this new girl perhaps indisposed? I had so hoped to meet her and see if she can live up to my standards’-and of course, to instruct her in her duties to me, as your first wife and khaSliu.”
Hafiz stared at Yasmin, with whom he had once briefly been so infatuated and whom he had long believed to be dead. He had never mourned her properly, it was true, for despite her beauty as a young woman, and her apparent ardor, she had not been a very good wife. She was vicious, vain, and somewhat stupid, so much so in fact that like many petty criminals her own emotional shortcomings even got in the way of fulfilling her greed at times. And Yasmin had been a very greedy woman.
Unfortunately, it seemed she was also alive, because she did appear to be breathing even though she very much looked the part of a ghost. Her once-charming face had been resculpted, had had its wrinkles repeatedly removed by poison and knife blade so often that her skin looked as if it had been stretched over her skull bones like the skin of a goat on a drum. It was shiny, not from youthful moistness and freshness, but rather, it appeared, from some sort of pickling process that made it look thick and coarse. Little veins had broken in her cheeks.